trust

Trusting When We Do Not Understand

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Here’s the setting: You’re sitting in a restaurant with your friends enjoying dinner. This is one of those restaurants that offers complimentary ice cream cones after every meal, and the ice cream machine has been getting a steady stream of traffic since you sat down. As you watch, kids all across the building scarf down their food with enthusiasm before turning (with mouths still full of their last bites) to their parents to get permission to go get ice cream. The kids can hardly stay in their chairs, hopping down and running to the ice cream machine as soon as they get the go ahead. You watch as little boys and girls figure out just how high they can get their soft serve to go on their little cones, and you laugh as the once clean faces are now being painted with vanilla. But then you notice one little boy crying.
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Assurance

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What God has spoken then
Seems lost before the now,
The call to enter in
Eclipsed before the how.
The weight of life doth wear
Upon the focused brow,
But God knows ev’ry care.
He ever keeps his vow.

So trust we now our King
And hope in his command
And with the angels sing,
For he has made us stand.
We do not face his wrath-
Eternal reprimand-
For we now walk his path,
The purpose he hath planned.

Though circumstances prod,
Fulfilment we shall see,
In spite of shield or sword
Or strong desire to flee.
Thus says the Lord our God,
And thus it comes to be.
The promise of the Lord-
Reliability.

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Count It All Joy

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Oh how quickly we abandon
Our morality and will
When, to our complete confusion,
Circumstances strike us ill.
Ill-advised is our rebellion,
Yet the rebel’s part we play:
From disciple into hellion
When the storm invades the day.
Can we not remember glory,
That our Lord has won the fight?
Do we yet forget the story?
Light has broken through the night!
Suffering is light and fleeting
When compared to Christ above.
No bereavement, bane, or beating
Breaks the grip of God’s great love.
Persecution serves to purge us.
Suffering now sanctifies.
We are bought by Christ’s own purchase,
Seeing now with open eyes.
Therefore, we count joy our sorrow,
Singing praise in deepest pain.
Should we face our death tomorrow,
Even this is wond’rous gain.

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Though Man May Die

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The scalpel in my Father’s hand
Doth fill my soul with hope and dread:
Hope for the good that he hath planned;
Dread for the loss of what is dead.
Afflicted with a fearful faith,
The foreign and familiar fused-
The actions of the holy wraith
Obscured by actions unexcused.
Yet I am not accused by God,
Despite the sins I still commit.
I fall before the meas’ring rod,
But, by his grace, he doth remit.
His right hand of omnipotence
No longer waits with wrath for me:
The God-man, breathing holiness,
Bore holes and wrath upon the tree.
Now he upholds with righteous arm
The souls now saved from Sodom’s fate.
He works his purpose through each harm
As for his work we watch and wait.
So banish now these fleshly fears
And fear the holy God most high.
His work, though wrought with many tears,
Brings life to man though man may die.

Providence

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God has not forgotten
God is not away
He is near the broken
As they weep and pray

God has not forsaken
Those he came to save
His – the stormy ocean
Providence – the wave

Sov’reignty and goodness
Unified in thee
You alone are righteous
Perfect trinity

Trust in his provision
Well beloved ward
Holy disposition
Of the risen Lord